by Rita Monaldi
That was why everyone loved them and everyone hated them, said Dulcibeni: they were hated because they served everyone as spies, they were loved because no better spies could be found to fulfil the sovereigns' purposes. They were loved, because they offered their services voluntarily as spies; they were hated because they thereby gained the greatest profit for their order and inflicted the greatest damage upon the whole world.
Cristofano applied the magisterial cataplasm to Dulcibeni, sprinkled with little fragments of beetle, and we both took our leave of him. I was absorbed in a jumble of thoughts: first, the physician's reference to Robleda's curious rheumatisms, then the revelation that the Spanish Jesuit had, at the seminary, been trained more to spy than to pray: all confirmed me more in my suspicions about Robleda.
I was about to retire at last (I really needed rest after the exertions of the previous night) when I noticed that the Jesuit had left his chamber, accompanied by Cristofano, in order to go to the pit near the kitchen where it was possible to deposit organic dejections. Faced with so propitious an opportunity, thought and action were one: I moved silently to the second floor and carefully pushed the door of the Jesuit's chamber, slipping inside. But it was too late: I thought I heard Padre Robleda's footsteps climbing back up the stairs.
I rushed out and turned hurriedly towards my own chamber, disappointed by this failure.
On my way, I stopped to call on my master, whom I found sitting up in bed. I had to help him loosen his bowels. He put some confused and listless questions to me concerning his own state of health because, he stammered, the Sienese physician had treated him like a child, hiding the truth from him. I endeavoured in my turn to calm him down, after which I helped him to drink, arranged his bedding as best I could and stroked his head for a long time, until he fell asleep.
Thus I could shut myself into my own room. I took out my little notebook and, in a state of extreme fatigue, I wrote down-in truth, somewhat hurriedly-the latest events.
Once I had retreated to the bed, my need for rest struggled with all the thoughts which came crowding in, striving in vain to arrange themselves into a reasonable and orderly whole. Perhaps the page of the Bible found by Ugonio and Ciacconio had belonged to Robleda, and he had lost it in the underground galleries near the Piazza Navona: it was probably he who had stolen the keys, and in any case, he had access to the tunnels. The assistance which I had given to Abbot Melani had exposed me to unspeakable terrors, as well as the struggle with the loathsome corpisantari. Yet the abbot himself had resolved the situation with the aid of a mere pipe disguised as a pistol: a success which he had then repeated, planning and carrying out the deception of the three emissaries of the Bargello, and thus circumventing the danger of a state of pestilence being declared, with all the frenzied controls to which that would have given rise. My lingering mistrust for Abbot Melani was subtly tempered by thankfulness and admiration, so much so that I awaited with a certain impatience the moment when the search for the thief would resume, almost certainly that very night. I wondered whether the fact that the abbot was suspected of espionage and involvement in political intrigues might not be something of a disadvantage for us all; but then, I thought, it was if anything the contrary: thanks to his cunning, the whole group of guests of the hostelry had been saved from the dreadful prospect of internment in a pest-house. He had, moreover, informed me of his mission, and thus given a token of his trust in me. He had purloined letters from Colbert's house; but such doings were, he affirmed, the direct and ineluctable consequence of his devotion to the French sovereign; nor did proofs exist to the contrary. I rejected with a shiver the sudden appearance, among my lucubrations, of the disgusting mass of human remains which Ciacconio's heap had disgorged onto me, and suddenly felt an overwhelming flood of gratitude for Abbot Melani. Sooner or later, I reflected, finally giving way to the promptings of Morpheus, I would be unable to prevent myself from revealing to the other guests the presence of mind he had shown in dealing with the two corpisantari and holding them at bay with promises and threats in equal measure.
Such, I imagined, must be the actions of a special agent of the King of France, and I only regretted that I had neither the knowledge nor the experience necessary adequately to convey such admirable undertakings: a network of secret passages under the city; an agent of the King of France selflessly and and at great peril hunting down rogues and ruffians; an entire group of gentlemen sequestered as a result of a mysterious death and suspected of infection with the plague; and finally, Superintendent Fouquet, believed dead, yet sighted in Rome by informers of Colbert. Now almost overcome by tiredness, I prayed heaven that I might one day, as a gazetteer, be able to write of similar marvellous events.
The door (which I ought in truth to have closed more carefully) opened on squeaking hinges. I turned towards it just in time to see a shadow hide swiftly behind the wall.
I arose and, leaping from my bed to surprise the intruder, rushed out into the corridor. I saw a figure a few paces from the door. It was Devize, who held his guitar in his hand.
"I was sleeping," I protested, "and Cristofano has forbidden us to leave our chambers."
"Look," said he, pointing towards the object of his visit on the ground.
Suddenly, 1 realised that I was walking on a carpet of small stones, whose crunching had accompanied me from the moment I had left my bed. I felt the ground with the palm of my hand.
"It looks like salt," I said to Devize.
I brought one of the little stones to my tongue.
"It is indeed salt," I confirmed in alarm, "but who can have spread it on the ground?"
"In my opinion, it was…" said Devize, but as he pronounced the name, he handed me his guitar and his last words were lost in the silence of the night.
"What did you say?"
"This is for you," said he with an ironic little laugh, as he handed me the instrument, "seeing that you like the sound of it so much."
I felt myself vaguely touched. I was not certain that I could not produce from those gut strings some agreeable sound, or perhaps even a pleasing melody. Indeed, why not attempt that ineffable melody which I had heard performed by the French musician? I decided to try at once, in his presence, despite knowing that I was exposing myself to his scorn. I was already exploring the fingerboard with my left hand, while the other felt the gentle resistance of the strings near to the sound hole in the instrument beloved by the Most Christian King, when I was surprised by a touch as familiar as it was unexpected.
"It has come to see you," remarked Devize.
A fine tabby cat with green eyes, imploring a little food, was laying siege to me, rubbing its tail with polite insistence against my calf. I was more alarmed than ever by this surprise visit. If a cat had found its way into the inn, I thought, perhaps there existed another way of communicating with the outside world which Abbot Melani had not yet discovered. I raised my eyes to share my thoughts with Devize. He had disappeared. A hand gently shook my shoulder.
"Should you not have closed yourself in?"
I opened my eyes. I was in my bed, and Cristofano had roused me from my dream, asking me to prepare and serve dinner. Reluctantly and confusedly, 1 abandoned my visions.
After quickly restoring some order to the kitchen, I prepared a soup of artichoke stalks with dried fish stock and good oil, onions, peas and involtini, little rolls made up of tunny-fish slices with a lettuce filling. This I served up with a generous piece of cheese and a quarter of a pint of watered-down red wine. Over everything, I sprinkled cinnamon, as I had again promised myself that I would. Cristofano himself assisted me with serving, personally feeding Bedfordi while I was thus freed to bring food to all the others and, above all, to feed my master.
Once I had fed Pellegrino, I felt a compelling need for a little pure air in my lungs. The long days of seclusion, most of them spent in the kitchen with the door and window sealed and barred, amidst the smells of cooking continuously wafting from the fireplace, had weighed down
on my chest. I therefore resolved to tarry a while in my little chamber. I opened the window, which gave onto the alleyway, and looked down: not a soul was to be seen on that sunny late summer afternoon. Only the watchman dozed placidly, huddled in the corner of the building on the Via dell'Orso. I leaned on the sill with my elbows and breathed in deeply.
"But sooner or later, the Turks will clash with the most powerful princes in Europe."
"Ah yes? And with whom exactly?"
"Well, for example, with the Most Christian King."
"Well then that will be the ideal occasion for them to shake hands without hiding."
The voices, excited yet prudently muted, were unmistakeably those of Brenozzi and Stilone Priaso. They came from the second floor, where the windows of their adjoining chambers were set quite close together. I leaned out discreetly to take a look: like some new Pyramus and Thisbe, the two had devised a rather simple mode of communication beyond Cristofano's strict surveillance. Both being restless and curious by temperament, they could thus give free rein to their irrepressible anxiety.
I wondered whether I ought to profit by that unhoped-for opportunity: unseen, I could perhaps glean some additional information from these two singular personages, one of whom had proven to be a fugitive. And perhaps I might learn something useful for the complicated investigations in which I was assisting Abbot Melani.
"And Louis XIV is the real enemy of Christendom: he, not the Turks," proclaimed Brenozzi in bitter, impatient tones. "You will be well aware that in Vienna the Christian princes are fighting to save Europe from the Infidel. Yet the King of France was unwilling to lend his assistance to the enterprise. That was no accident, truly no accident!"
As I have already told, and as I had crudely learned in those months from the chattering of the populace and from the new visitors to the hostelry, Our Lord Pope Innocent XI had worked strenuously to form a Holy League against the Turks.
"It is shameful," assented Stilone Priaso. "And yet he is the most powerful sovereign in all Europe."
"1 tell you, better Mahomet than those arrogant Frenchmen! They bombarded Genoa with a thousand cannon-shots for no better reason than that their fleet had received no salute when passing before the port."
Brenozzi stopped, perhaps gloating over the disconsolate expression which I could imagine painted on the Neapolitan's countenance.
Stilone, for his part, soon resumed with other pressing observations, so that the conversation became more animated.
I leaned out cautiously from my unsuspected position, looking down on their heads from above: in the heat of their conversation, the pair recovered the vitality lost in the darkness of solitude, and political passion almost dispelled fear of the pestilence. Did not the same thing occur with the other guests, whenever my visits or those of the physician-sometimes accompanied by inhalations of pungent vapours, spicy oils and gentle pressures-loosened their tongues and caused them to release a flood of their most intimate reflections?
"In all Europe," resumed Stilone Priaso, "only Prince William of Orange, despite the fact that he is always hunting for loans, has succeeded in stopping the French, who have gold to spare, and in imposing the Peace of Nijmegen."
Once again, the Dutchman William of Orange made an appearance in our lodgers' talk, he whose name had first arisen in Bedfordi's delirium and then been sketched by Abbot Melani. I was curious about this noble and impoverished David whose military prowess was equalled by the fame of his debts.
"For as long as the Most Christian King's mania for conquest remains unassuaged," insisted Brenozzi, "there will be no peace in Europe. And do you know when that will come to pass? When the Imperial Crown shines on the head of the King of France."
"You are, I imagine, referring to the Holy Roman Empire."
"But of course! To become Emperor, that is what he wants! That is why France is so much at ease with the Turkish invasion: if they press on Vienna, the eastern flank of the Empire is broken while France expands into its western flank."
"True! A pincer manoeuvre."
"Precisely that."
That was why, Brenozzi continued, when Innocent XI called upon the European powers to rally their forces against the Turks, the Most Christian King and first-born son of the Church refused to send troops, although he was begged to do so by all Christian leaders. Louis XIV had even tried to impose upon the Emperor in Vienna an odious agreement: making his neutrality conditional upon recognition of the conquests such as Alsace and Lorraine gained by his banditry on the western borders of the Habsburg Empire.
"He even had the gall to describe his claims as 'moderate'. Yet, the Emperor, although up to his neck in trouble, did not acquiesce. Now the Most Christian King is abstaining from hostilities: and do you think that is out of scruple? No! It is a tactical decision. He is waiting until Vienna is exhausted. Then he will be able to resume his invasions with all ease. Already, at the end of August, it was being said that the French troops were on a war footing."
If only Brenozzi could have read on my face the grave thoughts which these words inspired! Perched above the pair and eavesdropping on their conversation, I was biting on a bitter pill: to what manner of monstrous sovereign had Atto Melani sworn his services? I could not deny that I had grown inexorably attached to the abbot; and despite all the ups and downs between us, I had not yet ceased to regard him as my master and guide.
Thus, yet again the victim of my own mania for investigation and the discovery of knowledge, I found myself condemned to learn nolens volens things of which I would have preferred never to hear a word breathed.
"Ah, but that is nothing," added Brenozzi with a viperous hiss. "Have you heard the latest news? Now the Turks are protecting the French merchant fleet from pirates. So now trade with the Orient is in the hands of the French."
"And what will the Turks gain in exchange?" asked Stilone.
"Oh, nothing," sneered Brenozzi ironically, "perhaps only… victory in Vienna."
Hardly had the inhabitants barricaded themselves within the city, explained Brenozzi, than the Turks excavated a network of trenches and tunnels which went under the walls and placed very powerful mines, several times breaching the fortifications. Now, this was the very technique of which the French engineers and sappers were past masters.
"You are saying, in other words, that the French are in league with the Turks," concluded Priaso.
"It is not I who am affirming that; this was the opinion of the military experts in the Christian camp in Vienna. The armies of the Most Christian King had learned the art of using trenches and tunnels from two soldiers in the service of Venice, during the defence of Candia. The secret then reached Vauban, a military engineer in the service of the Most Christian King. Vauban perfected it: vertical trenches, with which to bring mines forward, and horizontal trenches to move troops from one point to another in the camp. This is a deadly stratagem: hardly has the right breach been made than the troops enter the besieged city. Now, suddenly, the Turks have become masters of this technique, in Vienna. Do you think that is a coincidence?"
"Speak more softly," warned Stilone Priaso. "Do not forget that Abbot Melani is just next door to us."
"Ah yes, that French spy who's no more an abbot than Count Donhoff. You are right. Let us leave off here," said Brenozzi, and after exchanging salutations, the two withdrew.
Now other long shadows were being cast over Atto. What was the meaning of that observation which aimed a shot at some unknown personage? While closing the window, I turned over in my mind the matter of Melani's ignorance of the Bible. Curious, I thought, for an abbot.
"Guitar, salt and cat," laughed Cloridia, much amused. "Now we have something better."
I had tidied up the kitchen with only one thought in my mind: to return to her. Brenozzi's grave statements surely called for a later confrontation with Abbot Melani: but the night was there for such matters, when he himself would come to my door to lead me back into the underground galleries. I had hurriedly brought t
heir victuals to the other prisoners, using various pretexts to leave those who, like Robleda and Devize, tried to retain me. It was, however, far more urgent that I should once again be able to enter into colloquy with the fair Cloridia, and this I did with the excuse that I wanted to interpret the second curious dream I had had since the doors of the inn had been sealed by the hand of the Bargello's men.
"Let us begin with the scattered salt," said Cloridia, "and I warn you that it is not a good sign. It means assassination, or opposition to our designs."
She read the disappointment on my face.
"But each case must be carefully weighed up on its own merits," she added, "because it is not said that this meaning refers to the dreamer. In your dream, for instance, it could refer to Devize."
"And the guitar?"
"It means: great melancholy, or work without recognition: like that of a peasant who labours all the year round without ever gaining any satisfaction. Or an excellent painter, or architect, or musician, whose work no one knows and who is always neglected. You see that it is almost synonymous with melancholy."
I was deeply upset. Two rather bad symbols in the same dream, to which, Cloridia announced, a third was to be added.
"The cat is a very clear sign: adultery and lust," she declared.
"But I have no wife."
"For the exercise of lust, matrimony is not necessary," retorted Cloridia, maliciously twisting a tress of her hair on her cheek, "and as for adultery, remember: every sign must be carefully valued and weighed up."
"But how? If I am not married, I am a bachelor and that is that."
"But then you really know absolutely nothing," Cloridia gently reproved me. "Dreams can also be interpreted in a manner completely opposed to their appearance. Thus, they are infallible, because one can just as easily conjecture the pro and the contra."
"But if that is so, a dream can mean everything and its contrary…" I objected.
